The Chicago Bears drew 125 penalties in 19 regular season and playoff games last season for a total of 999 yards.

But those were yellow flags. Of much greater concern are red flags for taxpayers as the Lake Forest team continues attempting to convince Illinois lawmakers it deserves special treatment.

Despite mild comfort as the megaproject/payment in lieu of taxes approach ran out of gas on the final lap – and definitely “I love to say I told you so” vibes from a guy who used headlines such as “Would enough legislative districts benefit from granting Bears’ wishes?” and “Bears boosters still not giving enough lawmakers a good path to yes” – the slapdash proposals the Senate approved in Monday’s wee hours are equally concerning.

The House balked at the last-ditch effort, and although people like Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, say things like “There was no appetite at all to provide public dollars to a $10 billion sports franchise,” the fact is 37 people in Harmon’s chamber voted to do just that.

State Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, proposed allowing Arlington Heights (or Chicago) to create a new government body to own the actual football stadium. So just like any other public property in town – and just like Soldier Field – that parcel wouldn’t be on the tax rolls.

In complete isolation, that’s arguably a neutral move, insofar as no pro football stadium currently standing in Illinois generates real estate taxes.

Of course, nothing exists in isolation, least of all venues that seat tens of thousands of people. Even allowing the for the contention it’s difficult to pin down precise government spending owing to a professional sports venue, it should be easy enough to agree the answer is “more than zero.” That alone moves the ledger in the wrong direction.

Further, this new municipal stadium authority would’ve been empowered to issue revenue bonds to help fund construction, and fund that debt service with tax revenue, which doesn’t materialize from thin air, or perhaps team rent payments.

Then there’s the adjacent land, the primary reason the Bears want to leave Chicago’s lakefront: real estate development is profitable and the ownership family gets to silo such money outside the NFL’s revenue sharing pool. Designating that land a STAR bond district allows for reimbursing costs backed by future sales tax revenue, a tidy sum considering the land is presently vacant, and at least some of which comes at the expense of existing business activity. Which means as those businesses slow down, so does the state’s general revenue flow.

We already have an Illinois Sports Facilities Authority: it fronted the Soldier Field redevelopment that isn’t fully paid. Is this new proposal a false start or unnecessary roughness?

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.